A total of 24 Macao residents with Chinese citizenship have been confirmed qualified to be candidates running for deputies to the Ninth National People's Congress (NPC) from the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR).

The qualifications of candidates were decided on January 24 at a meeting of the presidium of the electoral conference which takes charge of choosing deputies from the Macao SAR to the NPC, China's supreme legislature.

According to a bulletin issued by the presidium after the meeting, 31 Macao residents made applications from January 8 to 22to run for the NPC deputies. Among them, 25 persons turned in registration forms and 24 managed to collect enough numbers of nomination from members of the electoral conference which is composed of some 200 local residents.

The presidium has confirmed that the 24 persons are qualified to be candidates, the bulletin said.

With the fact that seven NPC deputies from the Macao SAR shall be elected this time, the electoral conference will have a pre-election on January 26 to decide ten formal candidates. And the final election will be held on January 28.